Musical Mishaps at SFMOMA

I was at SFMOMA yesterday, partly to wander but mostly to take another look at the gorgeous Frank Bowling exhibit & a first look at the exhibit commemorating the late Hung Liu. But when I reached the Liu exhibit on the 2nd floor there was the persistent, annoying thumping of overamplified trash music. I ended up fleeing the galleries with barely a glance at the exhibit I had come to see. It turns out that the intrusive noise was coming from several rooms away, & was part of a "sound sculpture" in an exhibit on lowrider cars.

Lowrider cars are as good a subject for an art exhibit as anything else; personally, I have almost zero interest in or sympathy with car culture of any sort, but it's easy enough for me to avoid those galleries, or give them a cursory look. What I object to is having trash music imposed on me when I'm trying to experience something else. You know those idiotic assholes who cruise through neighborhoods, stereos at top volume, setting off car alarms, rattling windows, & generally forcing anyone within half a mile to stop what they wanted to do & wait until the noise mercifully diminishes? It turns out the experience isn't any better when you call the obnoxious irritant a "sound sculpture" & stick it in a gallery rather than a suburban neighborhood.

I will also mention that there's a similar problem on another floor; a Nam June Paik video, which was originally set to Beatles songs which were then stripped out by the artist, has now, if I understood the label correctly, had a bunch of the songs added back in by the curators at SFMOMA, for reasons that were not at all clear. You are forced to hear the songs out of context in the adjacent galleries. But at least up there, because of the volume of the songs & the size & arrangement of the galleries, the effect, though annoying, is less intrusive.

This incident reminded me of something that used to irritate me regularly about the museum pre-lockdown: as far as I know, SFMOMA has had almost no engagement with modern music in any non-pop/rock sense. I don't expect them to highlight music, as they're mostly about visual arts, but almost all of what they play in the store, in their restaurants, in related exhibits, is the regular stuff you'd hear on commercial radio. Do they partner with new music ensembles, or offer them a performing space? Has there ever been a mention in the museum of the Second Viennese School, or the postwar Darmstadt school, or Glass/Reich/Adams/Riley & others of their school? Has there been any jazz, any neo-romantics or neo-tonalists? any interest in experimental instruments or tunings? . . . It's pretty much just grating rock songs (I used to have to flee the museum store fairly regularly because of what they were playing). Why is modern music so little recognized or promoted by a place that considers itself a central spot for modern & contemporary art? They wouldn't install a Burger King or McDonald's as the museum café (nor would I eat there if they did, but still) – why is the only music they ever highlight the aural equivalent of corporate-run fast food?